


Before His Heart Broke

by Cancion_de_Rio



Category: Broadchurch
Genre: Arguing, Before Sandbrook Scandal, Claire Ripley - Freeform, Extramarital Affairs, F/M, Lee Ashworth - Freeform, Microwave Tea, Past Relationship(s), Reheated Tea, Sandbrook (Broadchurch), South Mercia Police Station, pendant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-14 05:08:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28540098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cancion_de_Rio/pseuds/Cancion_de_Rio
Summary: The dismantling of Alec Hardy's and Tess Henchard's marriage just prior to the Sandbrook Scandal.
Relationships: Alec Hardy/Tess Henchard
Comments: 4
Kudos: 12





	Before His Heart Broke

Just from the dim light in the hallway, she looked beautiful with her dark hair splayed out over the pillows. She always wore it up for work, and it was only right before she went to sleep that she finally let it loose. It was beyond late and he was exhausted, but a fraction of a smile etched across his scruffy face as he stood leaning on the door frame, tugging at the knot in his tie.

Pushing himself upright, Alec switched off the light and, with only the glow from a streetlamp through the window, fumbled his way to his familiar spot on the bed. He kicked off his shoes and thought about taking off his trousers, but he was too tired to even slide his tie off. Curling up with his back to his wife, he hoped sleep would overtake him quickly unlike the other nights when his brain wouldn’t shut off despite the heavy weight of fatigue.

“You smell like an ashtray,” Tess remarked. She didn’t sound like she’d been asleep though there was a weariness in her voice.

Alec sighed. “Just let me sleep, please.”

Two full minutes of Tess staring up at the dark ceiling passed before she finalized the decision to not share her bed with the ashes of a man. She threw the covers back and stalked out of the room without bothering to put on her slippers. Alec didn’t call after her and she figured he was already out cold, but she had doubts whether he would’ve said anything even if he were awake.

Alec woke to the sunlight blazing down on his town of Sandbrook, stinging his bloodshot eyes. Squeezing one shut as he blinked away the burning of the other one, he clumsily lifted his mobile phone off the side table. Almost dropping it as he attempted to read the time through bleary vision, he blinked again and squinted at it, trying different distances before he finally ascertained it was already time to get back to work. He sat up on the bed with his elbows on his knees, hanging his head and dragging his hands along his face as he pulled himself back into the land of the living.

Not thinking too much about the fact that Tess wasn’t in the bed when he shifted around with the intention to rouse her, he stumbled to the toilet. Then, on his way to the kitchen, he found her edged into Daisy’s bed with her arms wrapped around their dozing daughter. He felt a stab in his heart as he realized this was becoming a habit of hers. He thought to himself that maybe he’d take up sleeping on the sofa to spare his daughter the imposition of her parents’ conflicts.

Tess stirred, and he hurried off down the hall so she wouldn’t catch him staring.

He burned the toast while trying to sort out the coffee maker, unsure why it was so complicated now to make a pot of coffee. He wasn’t even making it for himself, but maybe that was part of the problem. As he was contemplating whether to butter the burnt toast or not, his wife appeared, already in her work trousers and shirt, pinning the waves of her hair up. She saw him then glanced toward the coffee maker and frowned.

“Did you start the coffee?” she asked as if she were accusing him of a crime.

“Thought I’d save you some time,” he answered in protest of his innocence.

Her hand slapped against her thigh. “You know I don’t like how strong you make it.”

He opened his mouth for a retort but closed it again and sighed instead. “Right. I forgot.”

“Are you wearing the same clothes as yesterday?” She demanded to know. He was already on his second crime of the day and he hadn’t even started the car engine.

Alec looked down at his rumpled shirt with the tie still knotted loosely below the collar, but he didn’t reply. She already knew the answer by the sight of him. Admittedly, he hadn’t put too much thought into what he had on.

“At least change your shirt, Alec,” she scolded him. “You’re the lead investigator. Maybe try looking like it sometimes.”

He decided to change the subject to the one they could usually be more agreeable about. “Are you doing the school run for Daisy today?”

She flashed him a warning look. When did she not do the school run? When was he ever around to do things like that? If it weren’t for her, she didn’t know how their daughter would be properly cared for at all. She could’ve said all those things, but there wasn’t enough time for the fraught discussion it would inevitably lead to. Instead, all she said was, “Of course I am, Alec.”

Deciding not to push his luck, he nodded and began moving out of the kitchen, leaving the blackened bread on the table.

“Where are you going?” she asked as he started to pass her.

“To change my shirt, Tess!” His voice started to rise, but he reigned it in, ripping off his tie to release his frustration.

As he walked away, her eyes switched from his to the plate of burnt toast and she scoffed at it, turning to glare at his backside. She knew he wasn’t going to dispose of it before he left, and that it would be on the table in the same spot when she got back in the evening. Shaking her head, she grabbed the plate and dumped the inedible toast into the bin, thinking about her life had been reduced to cleaning up after a useless man despite working just as much as he did. He couldn’t even make decent coffee!

If he thought things weren’t going well at home, he found that things were even worse at the South Mercia police station. One of the CID constables rapped on DI Alec Hardy’s office door before he could even settle into the chair behind his desk. Alec didn’t like the long look on the officer’s face, and he didn’t like the words that followed, either.

“Sorry, sir, but there’s been a report of two girls gone missing…”

Alec didn’t want to make assumptions, but he had a lead feeling in the pit of his stomach. He asked the DC to send the details to his phone as he absently rubbed the whiskers sprouting on his chin. Wishing he had shaved that morning, Alec was thankful that he kept the electric razor at the office, so he didn’t have to go out meeting worried parents while looking like a vagabond in a rumpled suit.

Later in the afternoon, Tess texted him to remind him that he’d missed lunch with her and Daisy. She didn’t add the word “again,” but he could sense it hanging there at the end of the message. A second message suggested dinner out that evening to make up for it, and he quickly responded with a simple _OK_ so he could get back to the tasks at hand. The thought of apologizing for lunch floated at the back of his mind, but he’d already offered so many apologies and excuses that he noticed they both ignored him now, no longer offering assurances and understanding.

It was late, but not as late as the previous night when Alec got home. The kitchen light was left on like an unspoken rebuke for his failure to show up for dinner, and he groaned as soon as he saw its glow. He hesitated to walk down the hallway because he could already hear the words his wife hadn’t yet said.

She was in her dressing gown brushing out the waves in her hair. If he weren’t in trouble and tired, he’d close their bedroom door and he wouldn’t be sleeping in his work clothes again. But his arms ached when he bent them to pull off his blazer, and the glare in his wife’s eyes gave him a deeper pain that went straight to the center of his heart. Alec didn’t say how beautiful she looked, but he was certain she wouldn’t be interested in hearing it because it would sound patronizing. All he could offer her was yet another sigh as he chewed his lower lip.

Tess opened her mouth, ready to dispense her anger, but then she furrowed her brow. “Did you shave?”

“Well, I had to interview a couple whose daughter and niece have gone missing,” he told her. “Besides, you said I needed to look like I’m in charge.”

He regretted saying that when the smirk appeared on her lips. He wasn’t winning a single point today. Tess put the brush on the dresser and folded her arms as she so often did these days.

“So, you couldn’t even call or send a message?” She didn’t have to tell him what she meant.

Alec pulled his hands down his face. “Tess, I’ve had a day. I was working. You know my job; you know how it is.”

“You think you’re the only one who has days? I have days, too. I work, too. Yet I still manage to call you, or message you, or do school runs, and clean up after you, too.” Her chin jutted out with the last part. She was still angry about the forgotten toast this morning. “And you smell like cigarettes again.”

He let out a defeated breath. “OK, I’m tired. I’m not gonna argue.”

Pulling a blanket from the hallway linen closet, he switched on the television in the sitting room and shut off the kitchen light. Slipping his shoes under the coffee table, he laid his watch and phone on top of the table followed by his tie. Then he propped his head up on a sofa pillow and stretched his legs out beneath the comforter. He had no idea what show was on the television. He didn’t recognize anyone on it the way he used to. But it didn’t matter because it was just white noise that lulled him to sleep.

That was the last night he was home before she was in bed. The case with the two missing girls became more serious: the two girls weren’t being picked up on any radar, there were no witnesses or sightings, and things weren’t adding up. Hardy was getting a bad feeling by the end of the second day. On the third morning, he gave instructions to the staff under him in the CID, including his wife, whom he addressed as “DS Henchard,” as if she weren’t related to him in any way even though everyone at the station knew they were married. He made sure she wasn’t assigned to any role that accompanied him; he didn’t want any accusations of indiscretions later.

Later, he was glad she was on desk duties, gathering information, making phone calls. He wouldn’t have wanted her there when he was standing in the pouring rain next to the water in the woods. When they’d found the youngest of the missing pair of girls, it was like seeing his own 12-year-old daughter, Daisy, lifeless and left alone in the cold. DI Alec Hardy wouldn’t wish that sight, or having to carry a child out of that, on anyone. He wished he hadn’t had to do either of those things.

Afterwards, he was so focused on the case that Tess could see there was no point in expecting him for lunch, dinner, school runs, or anything else. He barely even asked after her or Daisy. The only place she saw him was at the police station when he was giving out the day’s directives or exchanging information with him—if he happened to be in at all. Otherwise, she caught him on the television at night when he was responding to local and national news journalists about the case. It was like watching a stranger on TV. But Tess knew he came home because he left the evidence on the sofa, in the kitchen, in the hallway bathroom, and the laundry hamper. Despite all that, she never saw him when he was there because she was in bed before he got home, and he’d already left in the morning by the time she got up.

She was so tired of it all. There was always a case, and it always took up all his time, leaving none for her or for Daisy. This one was turning out to be the worst so far, and it was just the icing on the cake. How many years had she tolerated a relationship with someone who wasn’t ever there, either mentally or physically, or both? They shared a daughter and a house along with a piece of paper that said they were married, but what else did they share?

They weren’t even sharing a bed anymore, but he’d been neglecting her long before that. Sometimes she wished he would come in their bedroom, tell her to shut up even when she was angry at him and remind her that she was still wanted, that there was still something to their marriage, even if it was just for a little while. But he never did that.

When they first met, she’d thought the way he cared about complete strangers was so charming. But now Tess didn’t find it charming, and she couldn’t understand how he could invest so much time and energy into people he didn’t even know while overlooking the ones he did know, whom he was supposed to care about more. She had empathy for people, too, but she didn’t let it take over her whole life. If he were only like this now and again, she still might not have liked it, but it would be more bearable. But it was all the time, never ending, day after day, month after month, and now Daisy was twelve and Tess wasn’t getting any younger.

“Hiya, Tess.” He was soft spoken, dark haired and handsome, and he was sitting on the edge of her desk with a look in his eye that made her hand move up to her hair. “Can I drag you out of here for a spot of lunch?”

Tess switched her eyes toward the station kitchen where her husband was placing a mug of tea in the microwave, oblivious to her. He looked worn, and sad, and she almost felt sorry for him. But she’d had enough of feeling sorry for him. Why should she feel sorry for him when he didn’t seem to feel anything for her? All he thought about was other people and their children.

Flicking her eyes back to the handsome DS, she flashed him a smile. “Sure, why not?”

They walked right past DI Hardy on their way out of South Mercia, chatting to each other cheerfully. Alec heard his wife laugh and he lifted his eyes over the rim of his mug just as he was about to test the temperature of the reheated tea. The mug drifted down to his side while he watched the pair walk out to a car. Alec thought it was rather unnecessary for the sergeant to open the passenger door for his wife.

Walking back to his office with furrowed brows, he stopped one of the other CID officers about to walk by. “Where’s DS Henchard off to with DS Whatsit?”

She raised her eyebrows at him and shrugged. “No idea. No one said anything to me.”

“Mm,” he murmured in acknowledgment.

The woman waited a few seconds in case he said something else, but his attention was tuned into the distance through the large window, so she kept on walking. Hardy went inside his office, sipping at the way-too-hot tea, and grimaced at the mug’s contents. Leaning back in his chair, he pulled his mobile phone out and stared at it in contemplation. He was just about to open his contacts to find his wife’s number when a notification dinged. It wasn’t from his wife, but it did contain information about his case and the two girls’ next-door neighbor, Lee Ashworth. Leaving the tea on his desk, he sprang from his chair and grabbed his jacket just before he rushed right back out of his office.

In the days that passed, DI Alec Hardy knew he was close to cracking this case and finding some justice for that young girl in the water as well as the still-missing niece. His heart was racing from adrenaline. He could practically smell the mystery’s answer; he just couldn’t identify what it was yet. But as Alec was drawn nearer to a result, he was dragged further away from Tess and Daisy. Some nights he stole naps on the sofa in one of the interview rooms at the police station because he didn’t see the point in going home to sleep for only a few hours on his own sofa.

The texts that Tess received when she was tucking in at night weren’t from her husband, but they contained words that should’ve been from him. Words that said thanks for lunch or dinner from a man who showed up in a fresh suit without wrinkles. Words that made her laugh—she didn’t think that sarcastic scoffing at Alec counted as proper humor. But the messages Tess really liked were the ones that made her feel warm and wanted.

After a search of Lee Ashworth’s house and car, Alec was called to the scene. Arriving in her own car, DS Henchard was standing next to Hardy when they were shown the necklace that the 12-year-old girl had been wearing the night she went missing, finally establishing a connection between Ashworth and the girl. Hardy was feeling pretty smug as he arrested Ashworth, whose guilt Alec could almost taste. While the suspect sat in a police car waiting to be taken down to South Mercia’s for booking, Alec walked over to Tess. The clear evidence bag containing the chain and pendant was in her hand as she gave him a satisfied smile.

“Do you want to take it in with you?” She asked, knowing how important the case was to him.

His eyes were on the pendant while he thought about it for a couple of seconds. When he answered, he was looking up at Ashworth’s wife, Claire, who was watching the whole scene from an upstairs window with a worried face. “No,” he finally told Tess. “I’ve got to finish up here before I interview him. Why don’t you take it with you and log it in?”

Ashworth kept his answers revolving in circles for hours, refusing to admit to anything Hardy questioned him about or suspected him of. Even though he was exasperated with the interview, Alec ignored the vibration of his mobile phone in his pocket. But he got up a few minutes later and stepped out into the hallway. He had a desperate craving for a cigarette and trying just as desperately not to give in to the addiction. Maybe he could sleep in his own bed for once if the smell of him didn’t offend his wife. His phone vibrated again, and he pulled it out of his pocket, answering this time when he saw the caller was just the woman he’d been thinking of.

“Alec, my car window has been smashed,” his wife’s voice came through the line, sounding more flustered than she was normally inclined to be. Alec was instantly pulled out of his fantasies and back into reality.

“Christ, are you alright? Daisy?” He felt helpless standing there on the phone.

“Yes, we weren’t in the car. I was…I came out and found it like this,” she told him. “But, um, I need you to come down here.”

“Right. OK, of course.” Lee Ashworth could wait. Alec had already grabbed his jacket and was heading toward the police station exit. He glanced at his watch, vaguely wondering why his wife was out so late.

“Fuck sake, the whole bloody window is shattered—” Alec began.

“I’m not worried about the window, Alec,” Tess moaned. When he looked up at her, she was rubbing her temples with worry in her eyes.

It took her a few stops and starts to get to the point. Alec’s stomach was beginning to sink, making his skin prickle with the sick feeling that was coming over him for reasons he couldn’t yet figure out. Finally, Tess told him that the evidence bag with the girl’s pendant wasn’t in her car. At first, he didn’t understand what she meant—he thought of course it wasn’t because he’d told her to take it down to the station for processing. But his jaw began to drop at the way she stared in silence, biting her thumb nail, as it dawned on him why the necklace wasn’t in her car.

“You _left_ the locket unattended in your personal vehicle?!” Hardy exclaimed, his dark eyes wide with shock. “I told you to take it in!”

Tess rubbed her forehead. “I had to pick up Daisy, and then there was dinner. I thought I’d take it with me in the morning.”

Alec had half a dozen questions flood his mind at the same time. _Why didn’t she go to the station first? When was dinner? Where was dinner? Where was Daisy? Why didn’t she go to the station after she picked up Daisy? Why in the morning…?_

It was that last question that burst out of him. “In the morning…!” He couldn’t reign in his rage as he usually did with her, and it echoed loudly off the walls of the carpark.

“I thought it would be fine, Alec. I’ve done it a hundred times before,” she said evenly. She thought maybe he’d have some understanding of what being a working parent entailed, but obviously he didn’t.

Hardy switched gears and went into detective mode. Surveying the scene around the car, he had a futile hope that he would find some clues leading to who might have smashed the window and taken the necklace. Then he realized that the shops were all closed, but the carpark was next to a hotel. He furrowed his brows.

“Why is your car parked here? What are you doing out here?” he asked her, confused.

Tess gave him a familiar look, the one that told him she’d done something wrong. His gut told him it was something more than leaving the locket in the backseat of her car. Sucking in air as his mouth hung open, he glanced at the hotel again and back at her. Turning once more to stare at the hotel, he remembered DS Whatsit opening the passenger door of his car for her that day. _Surely I’m wrong_ , he thought to himself. He turned back around to Tess, hoping she would allay his suspicions, but her eyes were full of silent apologies and her hands were tucked into her jacket pockets.

“No,” he said, still not believing what he was thinking. “You wouldn’t.”

Suddenly her eyebrows lifted, and she scoffed with a shake of her head. “Wouldn’t I? Wouldn’t I like to enjoy what’s left of my youth with someone who wants to give me a little pleasure?”

Alec’s shoulders sagged, and Tess felt a grip on her heart as she watched the pain crumple up his face while his mind absorbed the full implications of what she’d just said. Not only had he just realized that his wife had been at the hotel with another man, which he suspected—no, he knew—was because he wasn’t giving her what she needed, but critical evidence for their highly publicized case had been stolen from her car while she was with someone that wasn’t him. He’d trusted her with the evidence just as he’d trusted her with his heart, but she’d lost them both.

By that point, his anger was spent. From the expression on his face, Tess thought he might cry, but he just stared at her in defeat. His voice was low and soft when he finally spoke. “How am I gonna explain this, Tess?”

The color rose to her cheeks and she clamped her teeth together. She started shaking her head as she folded her arms across her chest. Tess didn’t know whether she was angrier at herself for being careless with the locket, being careless about her rendezvous, or at Alec for only being worried about the consequences at work.

Alec felt a stab in his racing heart, which was pumping his blood too fast, making him feel lightheaded. It had happened a few times now, and he’d brushed it off as stress at work and more stress at home. Now he was certain that his heart was breaking because everything in his world and the rest of the world was falling apart.

**Author's Note:**

> Events may not precisely align with those in the show.


End file.
